


Keep Your Heart

by Pingoodle (ThatAloneOne)



Series: Steal Your Heart [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2020-09-24 10:53:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 17
Words: 19,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20357281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatAloneOne/pseuds/Pingoodle
Summary: When you turn sixteen, you need to start stealing hearts to stay alive. For Maura's family, at least. But Maura doesn't want to steal anyone's heart. She doesn't want to kill anybody else to stay alive.But now Maura's sixteen, and she doesn't have much of a choice. She starts to date Todd, trying all the while to convince herself that stealing hearts is the right way to go. But then something goes wrong and her friend Juliette has to help her figure out what she really wants.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here's my disclaimer: this is old. I love it to pieces, but it isn't something that Current Me wrote, or maybe would have written. Also, mind the warning. There's also stuff that I might add warnings for later, so read at your own peril.

Sixteen is supposed to be an important birthday, _especially_ in my family. It marks my transition from child to full-fledged crazy. It's supposed to include a feeling of accomplishment and grandeur.

Right now, I've got heartburn from the caf's black bean burrito and a C on my history project.

"Hey," someone whispers from behind me. "Maura!"

I steel myself enough to turn, trying not to catch her eyes. She's grinning, though, so I risk it. She doesn't look away. Her glasses are perched precariously on the end of her nose, and strands of her dark mane are twisted in the joints. Curls spill over her forehead like a waterfall, only a few shades darker than her dusky skin. She's a princess with silver glasses instead of a gold crown.

"How'd you do?" Juliette says, careful not to catch the attention of Mr. Dunbar, who's still patrolling the class and handing out assignments like death warrants. "I got an eighty eight!"

There's been a running joke that Mr. Dunbar never grades anybody over an eighty eight if he can help it. And he does. I have never seen the man use anything but a rubric littered with the phrases 'at the discretion of' and 'in the opinion of'. Once, I got every answer right, wrote an extra four sentences per question, wrote a mini-essay on the back, and made a quiz for him. What did I get? That's right. An eighty eight. After that, I gave up. Which is probably why I have a sixty four right now.

I sigh, angle my paper at her. Juliette winces, pursing her crimson lips and letting out a wounded "_Ouch_."

I hit myself in the face with my essay before turning back around. Juliette tries to stifle a laugh, but ends up compressing it into something that sounds like she's choking on her hair. I roll my eyes and duck my head back to my work just as Mr. Dunbar makes his way back to the front of the class, doubtless to pontificate (again) about the Avro Arrow. It's his absolute favourite plane, and that's pretty impressive, considering how _much_ plane paraphernalia he has scattered throughout his life. I've counted seven model planes on his desk alone, and countless others dangle from the ceiling and I'm pretty sure I even saw one peeking out of the air vent. It's always a terrible few days when the fire safety inspection goes by and Mr. Dunbar is reprimanded. Again. He takes them down for three days in which all we do is stare at him doodling airplanes on the board, then he caves and strings them all back up.

I hear Juliette's head hit her desk, and my silent laughter lasts me until the bell rings, dismissing us from the endless monologue. I cram my binder and pencil case in my bag in a single practiced motion, zip it all together, and flee.

Any other day, I'd wait for Juliette and we'd walk to the locker bank together. But this isn't any other day. Today, I'm sixteen and I don't have a choice anymore.

Today, I sign myself up for a date.

* * *

I loiter by the football field, makeup retouched and hair artfully tousled. I'm not as lucky as my naturally-blonde sisters and mother. My kind of blonde comes from a bottle, and my hair crisps at the ends like it's been blowtorched if I don't condition it with the fanciest of brands.

Blondes get all the fun, Mother says. Blondes are pretty. And who pledges their heart to an ugly girl? Nobody. That's who. So dyed I stay.

I really should have started earlier. I'm not like littlest sister mine, with the perfect August birthday. Mine's in April, when it's too warm to be stuck together inside, but too cold to wear anything that shows you off. Makes it hard to snag a date, Mother always fretted. She always worries about me and my ambivalent attitude toward the testosterone poisoned sex.

Fortunately - or unfortunately, I haven't decided yet - the prospects are good today. It's unusually balmy for mid-April, hitting a respectable twenty. Clothing has been shed like it's going out of style, which I supposed it is. I can never understand why people insist on completely different fashions for different seasons. I can understand adding or subtracting layers, but having ridiculously different clothes? Pointless.

I'd only been leaning against the bleachers for maybe ten minutes when I get the first hit.

"Hey," calls Muscle 1. He is surrounded by his buddies Muscle 8 and Muscle 3, each conveniently labelled for my viewing (dis)pleasure. "Hey, girl. You look-"

I don't wait long enough to hear the end of that "compliment". I'm already straightening, waving, yelling, "Hey!" and grinning so loudly I don't have to know what they think of my butt or breasts or lips.

They almost look surprised, but they're jogging right on over to me in seconds. Muscle 8 is short and Muscle 3 is skinny, but other than that I can't tell them apart. They're all white, all with dull brown hair and salon highlights perked up with gel. They're all smiling at me with predatory grins, pearly whites perfectly aligned and bared.

"What's up?" I ask, brightly. My smile is stretched tighter than a clown's.

"Practicing," they say in unison, glance and elbow at each other.

I try really, really hard to look like I care. "Soccer, right? You guys must be great." And I look them up and down, up and down, up and down. They're wearing gym shorts and almost see through soccer shirts and they smell very strongly like wet dog. I can't imagine why people are so into athletes.

Muscle 1 and 8 looked pleased but done, like they've ticked the _Checked out by girl_ box off their daily to-do list. Muscle 3, on the other hand, looks interested, and he smiles wider.

I should be excited. But I'm not.

"Sorry, gal," Muscle 8 says. His voice sounds like an elephant being run over by a tank. "I gotta run. See ya later!"

Muscle 1 nods in agreement, and they take off in a synchronized jog, past the bleachers in a moment of pounding cleats. Muscle 3 lingers, looking torn. I try look like I care, again.

"Sorry to disturb your practice," I say, and it's true. I am sorry that I ever got anywhere near their practice. It's just day one. I can last longer than this, c'mon. Mother tells tales of her friend Terabithia, and I even met her once; the fearsome Amazon woman that has a better butt than Beyoncé. Apparently, she went without for two and a half months, stranded in the basement of her psychotic lovers mansion. I can stand a day. Jeez.

But Muscle 3 is smiling still, and this time it looks genuine instead of bro painted on. "Nah, chill, it's fine. I'm sorry for Brody," and he jerks his thumb back at his long-gone buddies. "He's a Chaston. They're all like that. Not that it's an excuse." He snorts, and his face is starting to flame. I wonder if just sprinting off would spare the both of us. "What's your name?"

I blink. "What? Me?"

I never actually got tutored past the first few minutes of interaction. Mother seemed to think I'd pick up on it, easy as pie. With Juliette I did, but that's because we're friends. And she's a girl. She's not as terrifying as the boys are.

Muscle 3 looks sheepish. "Yeah. They always seem to skip that step" He offers his hand. "I'm Todd, by the way."

I take his hand. It's as clammy as mine, and after a few seconds of clutching awkwardly, we both wipe our palms off and almost laugh. "I'm Maura. Maura Tuller."

Todd does a little mock-bow. "Nice to meet you, Maura Tuller."

I curtsey, feeling beyond ridiculous. "And you, Todd. Todd... Handsome." It feels excessive, but by the way Todd flushes and can't catch my eyes, I get the feeling it's spot on. By habit, I dig out my phone and offer it to him. "Here. Put your number in?"

Mother always said numbers were important. You needed some way to keep in contact with your target. Mostly I went to too many summer camps and made too many friends and filled my contacts to bursting with girls that could swim, cycle, dance, sing. It always made for late night entertainment, when I couldn't sleep. Odds were that Melanie or Wanda or Anna or Rebecca would be sleepless, too.

He types fast as he can, like he's afraid he's going to break my phone if he holds it too long. I stuff it back in my pocket, smile again. _Smile, and you're pretty. Smile, and you're just a face._

Todd jogs off, _finally_, and I walk back to the bleachers, heart aching.

But at least it's still mine.

I won't be able to say that for much longer.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, Myself, and I is the screenname Maura uses for herself.

**TODD:** Hey, Maura. How's ur week so far?

**ME, MYSELF, AND I:** Pretty good. It was my birthday, so lots of cake lol

**TODD:** Really? Well, happy birthday! How old r u turning?

**ME, MYSELF, AND I:** 'Sweet sixteen'. More like history-paper-failed-SOUR

**TODD:** Ahahaha that's too bad. Who do u have for history?

**ME, MYSELF, AND I:** Mr. Dunbar.

**TODD:** Aww, the plane dude? My older brother had him. Said he never shut up @ the avro arrow

**ME, MYSELF, AND I:** I KNOW RIGHT like I get it was a travesty that it got cancelled, the government sucks, americans suck, I get the point

**TODD:** lol

**TODD:** yeah so g2g, talk 2 u l8r?

**ME, MYSELF, AND I:** Yeah, great!

* * *

**JULIETTE:** MAURA

**JULIETTE:** MAUUUUUURRRRAAA

**JULIETTE:** MauuuuramauraMuArAAAA

**JULIETTE:** MOOOOOOO RAAAAAHHHHH

**JULIETTE:** Maura seriouslyyyyyyy where are you???

**JULIETTE:** MAURA

**JULIETTE:** Fine, then. Guess I'll see you tomorrow?

**ME, MYSELF, AND I:** OH MY GOD I AM SO SORRY JUL SO SORRY SOMETHING CAME UP

**JULIETTE:** Sure, suuuuuuuuuuuure

**JULIETTE:** What's with you today? Why didn't you wait for me?

**ME, MYSELF, AND I:** Something came up. Mother dearest called and I had to run. She said jump, I said NO THANKS and she went YOU MEAN HOW HIGH? and I went YEAH, THAT

**JULIETTE:** *facepalm*

**JULIETTE:** Your mother is a piece of work

**ME, MYSELF, AND I:** Ya think I don't know that? I grew up with the woman

**JULIETTE:** At least your sisters are ok

**ME, MYSELF, AND I:** Yeah, thank god. Meadhbh is like Picasso, only with crayons, and Mab is wicked with Shower Opera

**JULIETTE:** Niiiiiiice

**ME, MYSELF, AND I:** Gotta go, homework calls louder than the mother. See you in History?

**JULIETTE:** See ya!

* * *

**TODD:** Didn't see you today :(

**ME, MYSELF, AND I:** Sorry! I looked for you on the soccer field, didn't see you.

**TODD:** Yeah was in the gym after school 2day with Brody

**ME, MYSELF, AND I:** Working out the guns ;0

**TODD:** Well... yeah :D

**ME, MYSELF, AND I:** I can tell

**ME, MYSELF, AND I:** Ahhh, got to go.

**TODD:** Talk 2morrow? Soccer field after school?

**ME, MYSELF, AND I:** great

**TODD:** Awesome

* * *

**JULIETTE:** Mother calls again, huh?

**JULIETTE:** Sucks

**JULIETTE:** Maura, tell me I didn't see you out on the soccer field? Someone who looks like you, right?

**JULIETTE:** Nah, no way. You hate the sweaty jocks :P

**JULIETTE:** See ya tomorrow! I'm turning in early today. Have sweet dreams. :)

* * *

**TODD:** Nice seeing you 2day

**ME, MYSELF, AND I:** You too

**TODD:** You wanna

**ME, MYSELF, AND I:** ?

**TODD:** Sorry. You wanna go for coffee? The weekends practically here

**TODD:** The Bean?

**TODD:** Id say go earlier but practice is pretty wicked the rest of the week

**ME, MYSELF, AND I:** It's only Wednesday, Todd ;)

**ME, MYSELF, AND I:** I'd love to, but I've already got plans with the MotherMonster for this weekend. How about Monday?

**TODD:** Sounds gr8

**ME, MYSELF, AND I:** One week anniversary! *party balloons*

**TODD:** Haha yeah

* * *

**JULIETTE:** YOU REAAAAAADY FOR THE WEEKEND OF DELIGHTS?

**JULIETTE:** WE ARE TOTALLY GOING TO WATCH ALL OF DOCTOR WHO YOU WILL LOVE IT ALL

**JULIETTE:** IF YOU DONT LOVE IT WE CANT BE FRIENDS ANYMORE

**ME, MYSELF, AND I:** IVE ALREADY WATCHED IT ALLLLLLLL

**JULIETTE**: SOOOOOOOOO?

**ME, MYSELF, AND I:** I ALREADY LOVE IT

**JULIETTE:** SEE? MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN

**ME, MYSELF, AND I:** TOTALLY


	3. Chapter 3

"Psst!" Juliette jabs my back with her pen. "_Maaaura_."

I flap my papers at her over my shoulder. Then smack my face with them. She snorted. "That good, huh?"

I twist to face her. She's wearing a white dress today, one with mirrors scattered like stars, and it's like a cloudy day pressed against her. I'm wearing flannel again, but my makeup and hair are way overdone for just a normal school day.

Today is Date Day. It's only been a week since my birthday, and already I can feel my heart pitching hissy fits. Gym is a nightmare made specifically to torture me. We'd done the suicide runs today and their name had never felt more accurate. Gym had been second period, and it was fifth right now, but my heart still pounds like it's in a race. And the finish line is plain finishing me off.

Mr. Dunbar clears his throat, and I snap eyes front, face going crimson. Aarin, a pizza faced tiny boy, snickers, and I think I hear him whisper something unsavoury to his friends.

I scowl at the board and its diagram of an airfoil. What was this, sixth grade science? Man, Mr. Dunbar liked getting off track. Maybe he should just get into science and leave all us poor grade ten history schmucks alone. History wasn't _actually_ built solely on the back of an airplane. Although I don't think Mr. Dunbar actually knows that.

I sigh just as Juliette's head hits the desk again. I mutter something about a concussion and she mutters something about about shutting up.

We play thumb war until the period ends, her hand the opposite of Todd's; warm and dry. Really, I'd rather hold Juliette's hand than Todd's, but I don't have much of a choice in the matter.

Todd's waiting outside for me, like he said he would, and I don't wait for my stomach to fill with sunbeams and butterflies before I stretch my smile across my face. I act like I'm Meadhbh, the ten year old with the sunbeam smile.

It seems to work. Todd offers his elbow with a silly little grin. "After you, my lady."

I take it, and we walk elbow in elbow down half the way to the sidewalk before we both crack up, my laughter more forced than his. Again, he doesn't notice. "To the Bean, then?" he asks, as if I'm about to ditch the plans then and there.

Ha. I wish I could. No such luck. And plus, that would just be _rude_.

We make it to the Bean without further incident, though we are garnering no small amount of looks. Todd is still blushing and clutching my hand like it's a lifeline. I let him, because he's a considerably more literal lifeline to me.

No. I can't think about that. He's a _person_. He's Todd. I can't think about that. Not yet. It's been a _week_. Terabithia survived two months and lived to laugh and shake her butt in my traumatized face. I can survive for ages on my own heart. Surely it's better than anyone else's? My heart is made just for me. It's _mine_.

Todd leads me to a booth off to the side at the Bean. It's not nearly as bustling as I'd expect, given the time of day. It's the closest coffee shop to the high school, and about 50% of the school uses it for their quick caffeine fix. The other, pickier, 50% walk an extra two blocks to Starbucks.

"You just, uh," he tells me, the flush all the way down his neck by now. He looks like he installed a fire hydrant instead of a face. "Sit here, and I'll get you something! I'll pay!"

He's halfway to the counter before he remembers that he doesn't know what I want and doubles back, still beet red. "Maura, sorry. What did you want?"

I twist my hands over and over themselves in my lap. It's the only way I'm letting my inner turmoil out, even as it pounds at my edges with hammers and chain saws. "Just a hot chocolate!" An honest smile, for once. Free hot chocolate does that to a girl. "Thank you, Todd."

If possible, he goes even redder. I wonder if he's going to give himself a coronary. _That_ would be a first. In this sort of situation, it would usually be my fault.

I study the sugar shaker like it's the Holy Grail as Todd orders. I don't know what side I'm trying to convince myself is better.

Take the hot chocolate, smile a bit, and forget his number.

Or. Take the hot chocolate, smile a lot, and steal his heart.

One option ends with me dead in a matter of months. The other ends with Todd dead in a matter of days. So, really, it's this: which of us deserves to survive more?

(And if I have the nerve, but shouldn't I? I'm a Stealer. I have the nerve and power to do anything. Even Tulip, barely a year old, delicate as the flower she's named after, will someday have the nerve to rip a boy's heart out of his chest. Why should I be an outlier?)


	4. Chapter 4

He returns with the largest hot chocolate I've ever seen, and my heart jumps with guilt and pain and anticipation. I have to remind myself to thank him before taking my spoon and digging into the whipped cream on top. Todd laughs, takes a chug of his manly no-sugar no-cream crazy bitter coffee, and personally I think he should get a medal for choking it down without a grimace. Even Mother, the orneriest woman on the planet, doesn't take her coffee plain.

"So, Maura," he says, after we've both drank down the first half of our drinks. He's still smiling through some feat of witchery, but I notice he makes sure to take very, _very_ slow sips. "How was Mr. Dunbar today? Did'ja hear anything else about the Avro Arrow?"

I snort, rippling my hot chocolate. "I wish. He's moved on to teaching us how an airfoil works." It feels like cheating on Juliette, complaining about my day. Usually, it's her, when I'm talking honestly about anything. Juliette is the one I get chocolate with and laugh with. Todd's butting in.

And that's when it hits - when, _if,_ I take Todd out and survive myself, I won't be able to hang around here much longer. Everyone's seen me with him. It wouldn't be hard to fake a rebound and hit one of the other soccer players for my next heart, but when he dies? I'd need to clear out.

I think this is the first time it really hits home. Once I'm sixteen - and it's too late, I'm there - my life becomes endless hunts. There's no way around it. Either I become a serial dater or I'm gone. Once I start, once I get my first taste of what Mother always describes as joy and sparkles and pure life, I don't know if I'll be able to stop. Stealing hearts seems as much an addiction as meth or ecstasy. You live for your next hit, your next burst of energy.

That's not who I want to be.

_You don't have a choice,_ Mother's voice, harder than steel. _Now. Take your chance._

"An airfoil?" Todd's laughing now, a little too hysterical and loud. I think I'm making him nervous, though I can't tell how. "Wasn't that like, grade five science?"

"Grade six, yeah." I hum, sink deeper into the warmth of the hot chocolate. I do love hot chocolate. It makes me like Todd that much more that he didn't just get me coffee instead. I've heard horror stories from Aunt Tia and Mother and Terabithia about men who either ordered for them straight out or just "forgot" their orders. With men like that in the dating pool, I can almost get why they hunt so relentlessly. They survive and wipe some unsavoury genetics out of the gene pool. It's almost a good thing.

If not for the, you know, death.

"That's nuts," and okay, did Todd really need that coffee? Dude is pretty much vibrating with nervous energy. "Hey, Maura? What do you think of poetry?"

Whoa, hello loaded question. Poetry can be great, like the one about rain Juliette keeps writing over and over again instead of writing down notes. I asked her, once, where it was from. She said she wrote it herself. I stole one of the crumpled sheets out of the recycling at the end of class, once. It's on my wall now. It really is a lovely poem.

My favourite line is _It feels like it's always grey outside_, because I _get_ that. There are different types of grey, the clouds when it's raining where it looks like potential and lively peace. Then there's the other grey, the grey of my life from now on in.

"Yeah," I find myself saying. "Poetry's great!"

Todd slumps into relaxation like I've popped a balloon that was stuck under his lungs. "Great! Cause, uh, I wrote one for you?"

He _what_? I must've misheard him. I try to look confused, (spoiler: I am), but it must look like something entirely different because Todd swells up his chest and starts.

"Eyes like grass

When I met her, my buddy commented on her ass

Maura is the name

Awesome is the game

Valentines Day

Isn't so far away

Would you be my other part?

You can have my heart."

Electricity hits me like a runaway train. Everything in the room flickers and dies away into blurred colour. Everything except Todd, red and embarrassed and waiting. He's breathing fast, his chest rising and falling with his heartbeat-

I can feel his heartbeat. It's thrumming through the room like heavy drums and my hand twitches. And again.

I reach for his chest, the mantra thrumming in my mind. _He bequeathed his heart to you while understanding what he was doing. It was not in a language beyond his grasp. His heart is yours._

Time slows, creeps like molasses through snow.

_Dark. Julitte, so pale against her cloud dress. Grinning with a crown of silver glasses_.

Time crashes down with my hand, to the table. My hot chocolate wobbles and wobbles, nearly falling. Todd's still looking so eager and hopeful and what the _hell_ dude, it's April, how desperate are you for a Valentine? (Vaugely I remember someone being dumped at eleven, the hour before midnight on Valentines Day and breaking down). My hand landed so close to his he takes it as he really shouldn't, and he grasps my hand with his clammy fingers.

The front door of the Bean jingles, and that's when I make my decision. I yank my hand out of Todd's and rattle to my feet, ignoring his heart still beating in my ears, my hand itching and twitching and every _single_ thing that Mother and Meadhbh and Mab and Tia and Terabithia have ever said.

"I'm sorry-" and I'm stuttering, I don't stutter, what's going _on_\- "I have to go. Sorry. Sorry. I can't- I can't- I'm sorry."

And I'm not proud, I'm fleeing. I'm forgetting every single thing that I've ever learned about surviving. And I don't know how this can ever happen because I am _going_ to see Todd again but I _can't_, I can't, I can't.

I'm going full tilt at the doorway and I don't realize there's someone there until I'm way deep in their arms, face to face and still stuttering that _I'm sorry, I can't, I can't._

It's Juliette.


	5. Chapter 5

"Maura?" she says, bewildered, but I'm already out the door. Stumbling down the sidewalk like I'm drunk. I'm headed in the wrong direction, but I don't care.

I don't realize that I'm crying until I can taste my tears, salt and sorrow. I wipe them away as best as I can, but I can't stop crying, stop my hands from shaking. It feels worse than the day I broke my leg and my other ankle jumping off the roof and passed out because it hurt so _much_.

This hurts more than that. Walking away from Todd when he was mine for the taking hurts more than breaking a femur and crushing a bone in my ankle and spraining my wrist. It hurts more than all of that times the aching, faltering beat of my heart.

"Maura! Hey, _Maura_!"

Juliette. She's still following me, and I choke on my own laughter when I realize that I'm actually walking towards her house. It's less than a block away.

"Maura, hey, hey." and she's at my shoulder, that heaven dress still floating around her, clinging to her curves tighter than my hand wanted to cling to Todd's heart. "_Maura_."

She wraps me in a hug, still standing in the middle of the sidewalk. She smells like cinnamon and sweetness. I try to stop crying. It doesn't work.

"Shh," and she's running her hand down my back and it feels like a kind of a comfort I didn't get from Mother. We're rocking back and forth, a little. "Maura, shh."

I gulp, screw my eyes shut tight. Juliette keeps up the stroking until I can finally breath without choking on the echoes of Todd's heartbeat. I lift my head, step back. People are staring, but as soon as I look up they pretend they're looking at their phones, each other, and I even spot one suspicious looking Muscle Bro studying the sidewalk crack in front of him.

I give her a watery smile, let her grab my hand and pull me along. We're walking back to her house and I'm still sniffling and she looks like her heart is breaking.

"I'm sorry," I say, as we mount the steps to her apartment. It's one of the older ones in Burlington, one of the quintessential townhouses that look carved out of architectural ambition. It suits her. "I cried all over your dress, and you didn't even get to buy a coffee. I'm an _awful_ friend."

She lets go of my hand long enough to fiddle in her pocket for the key - as if her dress isn't perfect enough, it has _pockets_ \- and she lets us into the warm haven of her home. My hand feels cold without her holding it, and I curl it, like that'll help. It doesn't feel the same. I'm still trying to compose myself, think I have a pretty solid mask in place, when she grabs my hand again to tug me up the rickety wood stairs to her bedroom.

Her bedroom is painted the same cloud colour as her dress, accented with mahogany bookshelves and a bedspread the colour of the budding leaves out the open window. A window seat is nestled in below the view, a cushion the same green as the bedspread there, a dent the size of Juliette's butt in the middle. Her room looks lived in, not like my dinky little apartment that I'm ready to ditch at a moment's notice.

She shoves me down on one side of the window seat, plops herself on the other side. We lean against the frigid window, like we usually do. I like to think it clears my mind, but at the moment all I feel is muddled.

"Maura," Juliette says, and when I don't catch her eyes, she uses one dainty finger to turn my head to face her. Tears well again, but this time I manage not to sob. "Oh, Maura."

She pats my knee until I can make myself stop crying again. I stare at the popcorn ceiling until the tears have fallen back through my eyes. "I'm sorry," I say again, and I hate how broken I sound.

"What _happened_?" Juliette looks like her heart is breaking again and I can't bear it.

It all spills out. Trying to go out with Todd, because I feel like I have to. Texting him all week when actually I would rather be listening to Mr. Dunbar explain how the Avro Arrow used revolutionary airfoils. Him being so sweet and getting me a gigantic hot chocolate and I pretend I don't see how she almost looks betrayed when I tell her that part.

"Then he," and I hiccup with laughter or tears or exhaustion, I can't even tell anymore. "He said he had a poem for me and it was _horrible_. Ginny-wrote-it-for-Harry-Potter horrible. And I think he's the one that got ditched an hour before Valentines Day because he asked me to be his date. For _Valentines Day._"

Juliette sputters, knocks her head back against the window with a hollow **thunk**. "No way. It's _April!_"

I laugh, a little hysterically. "I know! But then he said 'my heart is yours' and I just..."

My hand spasms again. Juliette's looking at me funny. I shake my head. I can't tell her that, I can't. She'd think I was a monster, and I don't want to ruin what little I have in this little town. Well. Gigantic suburbia, but who's counting? "It was just too much. The straw that broke the camel's back, you know?"

She hums an affirmative, and when I can feel it vibrating through me too, I realize just how close we're sitting. We've both gravitated in, and right now we're giving each other back the warmth the window is taking away, sides pressed close.

I turn my head, look at her, really look. Her eyes are warm cocoa brown, delicate lashes fluttering every time she blinks. Juliette's staring too, but not at my eyes.

She's staring at my lips.

We're both leaning, and then suddenly we connect and it's like the fireworks I was supposed to get from Todd's heart, but purer and brighter. Juliette's lips are soft and taste like sugar cookies. She sighs through my lips and then our eyes are closed and she's tilted her head and one of my hands is trapped against the window but the other is on her arm and-

I realize what's happening. My eyes snap open wider than they've ever been and I'm on my feet and it's just like Todd only worse because it's _Juliette_. Her eyes are still closed but she doesn't look happy and I can't bear it so I don't try to figure out exactly what she's feeling because I know what I'm feeling and it's _panic_.

"I can't," I'm saying all over again. "I- I'm sorry. I have to go."

I'm out the door before she can open her eyes and I'm crying again.

_So much for sweet sixteen._


	6. Chapter 6

I've stopped crying by the time I've crashed through the door of my tiny apartment, but only because I've run out of tears. I'm almost dry heaving, still gasping and gasping and making horrible little choking noises.

I don't realize my phone is at my ear until Mab's voice is calling for me. "Happy belated birthday, lazy- Sister mine? Maura? _Maura_?"

I take a breath for what feels like the first time in a year. My heart gives a grateful squeeze, settles a little slower. Mab's a touchstone to who I should be. She's my little sister, just old enough to understand how hard this is going to be for me. She's the one who squashes the spiders for me, but she can't hunt for me. I'm the one who has to deal with the fallout of my heart.

"Maura?" Mab says again, and my little sister's worried now. "Sister mine, what's going on?"

"I-" and I don't know what I'm choking on, my tears or my memories or my guilt. "I- Look, Mab, can you just-" hiccup "-just tell me about your day?"

Mab sounds mystified. "Um, sure?" Her fingers tap against the casing of the phone on her end. "Well, for one thing, school sucked."

My heartbeat and breathing wind down to almost normal as Mab goes on and on and _on_ about her teacher, one that's pretty much as dumb as Mr. Dunbar. My sister tells me about the new girl in her class. She tells me about her drama class, where she couldn't cry on command and how that means she's probably going to get a C. Mab tells me how mad Mother got when she caught Meadhbh doodling a raven on the guest room wall. Mab's snorting when she tells me how Meadhbh cried crocodile tears for about two hours until Mother broke and gave her giant crayon box back. Mab complains how Meadhbh, once she's started crying, can go on and on and _on_ whereas _she_ has to fight for every second of tears.

I wipe the last of the crusted salt off my face. Prop the phone between my shoulder and ear as I take a hand towel and scrub every remaining tear track off my face. The bathroom still smells like tea tree oil and rot, a gift from the previous occupant, as well as the mirror that's larger than I am that hovers self-importantly over the sink. It's great — I can see exactly how pathetic I look, all the way from the top of my head to the bottom of my flannel.

My flannel is crumpled, my hair in disarray, my cheeks bright scarlet and eyes still filling with tears. I'm a wreck, inside and out, with only my fourteen-year-old sister gabbling over the phone holding me together.

I'm on what passes for my sofa — a lump ridden lavender paisley monstrosity — head tipped back, eyes closed, when Mab winds up her tale of ages. There's silence for a while, static crackling and buzzing. Then: "Maura, what's wrong?"

I don't open my eyes. "Well, for starters," I say, "I kissed my best friend."

"Oh," Maura says, unaffected. "Was that fun?"

I blink my eyes open. My ceiling isn't interesting to look at, not like Juliette's popcorn, but it's something, at least. "My best friend," I say again. "_Juliette_."

I can _hear_ Mab roll her eyes. "I know, Mab. You talk about her all the time. My question still stands: Was that fun?"

What? "_What?_"

Mab blows into the speaker and I jump, nearly flinging my phone across the room. "Oh, Maura."

"'Oh, Maura', _what_?" I say, and I realize that I sound hysterical but there's not much I can do about that, so.

Mab stops chuckling. She's concerned again. "Wait, Maura, did you really never get that memo?"

"What memo, Mab?" I'm pacing now because sitting still just feels like sitting against the window with Juliette pressed against my side and I _can't_ remember that. "What are you going on about?"

"'Boys are for hearts, girls are for fun?'" and Mab's got that Quoting Mother voice down to a science. "I got that soon as I told her I liked girls too. Thought for sure you knew that, you know, since you think boys are something that crawled out from the pits of a hell." And she snorts. "And that's on a good day."

No. No, I did not get that memo. I did not get anything even _approaching_ that memo. "No," whoa, Maura, dead much? I try for a notch more alive. "I did not, actually get that memo."

"Oh, Maura," and she sounds so heartbreakingly like Juliette that another tear slips down my stinging cheek and I have to close my eyes to stop the tears from rushing out again. "She must've thought you already knew. Maybe she thought Terabithia told you. Oh, sister mine, I am _so_ sorry."

"It's not your fault," I say, of course. My head and heart are spinning. "Thank you, sister mine. Oh, _thank you_."

"Anything else I can do?" she asks, and I shake my head before I remember, right, I'm on the phone and Mab isn't nearly as psychic as she likes to think she is. There's something in my chest that isn't my heart or a burden.

I think it's hope.

"No, thank you, Mab. I'll call you later, okay?"

"Of course." I hear her grin. "And tell your _special_ friend hello from me."

"Mab!"

But she's hung up and even though minutes ago I would have sworn it was impossible, I'm smiling.


	7. Chapter 7

Juliette is avoiding me.

I haven't so much as caught a glimpse of her all day, even though you'd think she would show up for our weekly lunch date in the library. I don't know if it's leftover gym that makes my heart skip a beat at the empty table or the fact that my best friend won't talk to me.

I'm thinking it's all going to get fixed when I walk into history class, but I'm wrong. Juliette isn't in her usual seat behind me. She's in the far, far back, displacing a greasy haired girl who never goes anywhere without a book. They're still arguing, Juliette's eyes dark and snapping with anger, the other girl waving a book with a bright pink cover like she's trying to flag down one of Mr. Dunbar's model planes.

I dump my bag on the floor by my desk with undue force, and Juliette's eyes jump over, startled. They catch mine but they done hold and she's turned back to the girl, spitting out something, and the girl turns and flees. There's a clear space between us but I'm the only one trying to breach it. She won't look at me. She won't even be obvious about it, turning back to her notebook and starting a line at the top of the page, intent on her scribbling.

The pencil scratching sounds angrier than it has any right to, and I think I know what she's writing. The same poem I have on my wall at home, the one thing I've let myself have to brighten up my temporary home.

_It feels like it's always grey outside._

The wrong kind, today. It feels like the potential has burned down to ash.

I flip open my binder, wince down at my essay, still emblazoned with a bright red 68. Not that I expected it to change overnight, but whatever. It sucks.

I almost jump out of my own skin when someone flings themselves down in the seat behind me. _Juliette's seat_. I turn, trying to smile trying to look sorry, but my face collapses in on myself when I see that it's just the reading girl, taking the only seat left in the room. She glares at me for a bit before ducking her head back into her book. **CAN SHE FIX EVERYTHING THAT WENT WRONG? IS LOVE STILL WAITING IN THE WINGS?** says the back cover. **OR WILL EVERYTHING FALL APART?**

I risk another look at Juliette, but she's still writing out her poem, over and over again. I turn my attention back to the board, which is remarkably free of airfoils or other plane related nonsense.

"Today," Mr. Dunbar says from underneath his desk, sound echoing out oddly, "We will be learning about _tanks_."

This time, I'm the one with the head-to-desk, but Juliette isn't behind me, and she doesn't laugh. And now my head hurts.

History is even more painful than usual without Juliette behind me, inside jokes and laughing glances _gone._ I hadn't realized how much she means to me until, well, until I messed everything up.

I don't know if kissing her was what went wrong, or if it was running away. I don't know if she likes me. I don't know _anything_.

When the bell rings, it's like a gunshot from a starter's gun: Juliette is out the door before my binder is even closed. Hey, I think, _I_ am supposed to be the supernatural creature here.

Thirty harried seconds later, I'm out the wall but either Juliette is an Olympic sprinter or a chameleon because she is nowhere to be seen. My shoulders take a dive. Students brush past, I'm jostled back and forth. I know I should get a move on, get to my locker, get home, _something_, but I can't find the willpower. Juliette won't even _look_ at me.

**Ba-dum. Ba-dum.**

No. No, this can't be happening.

I spin on my heel, try to scan the crowd. My hand feels like it's being pulled, shocked, burned. Todd's face leaps out from the crowd like it's been highlighted. His heart beats in my ears and I want to start crying again but I have had _enough_ of crying.

I'm going to have to get away from him myself. I can do it. I've done it before. I stood up from the table and walked away. Juliette calmed me down, but I was the one who got myself away.

I can do this.

"Maura!" Todd spots me. He's coming closer and closer and nope, I can't do this, actually. Already my hand is going up like I'm about to Jedi mind blast him, fingers curling in at the tips like I'm going to claw his out with my nails.

I don't know what I would've done if he had gotten any closer. But Juliette was there, shouldering Todd out of the way with a not-very-sorry-sounding "Sorry," and then she busted past me, hair bouncing, pale green dress swirling around her legs like a current. The air rustled after her, sweet and smelling like sugar cookies.

Todd's heartbeat fades, replaced by mine, beating hard in my throat as I watch my best friend practically run from me. I don't know which is worse.

"Maura!" Todd calls again, but I ignore him, shoving my way through the B.O. laden crowd, trying to catch up with Juliette. I can't. Once, I catch the top of her head, a twist of a skirt, but she's gone by the time I'm outside.

I groan, lean back against the school. It's red brick and ugly, three stories in some sections and two in others. It predates intelligence and the knowledge of how to build pretty things. It's charming, in a clunky, curriculum oriented way. At least we have running water and electricity - looking at it, you might not guess that's an option.

School's a tricky thing. You get to learn, but the quality of the education depends on the people around you. You need good teachers, for one. Exhibit A: I'm learning lots about planes in history class, but not a whole tonne about actual _history_.

Peers also matter. A friend can make a horrible class manageable. Or make a horrible class hell, when she can't even look at you.

I have to do something. I can't text her, that's just pathetic. What would I even say? _Hey, Juliette. Sorry I kissed you. Unless you wanted me to kiss you. And then I'm sorry that I ran away. See you in history? At lunch? SEE YOU NEVER? TAK TO ME!?_

I need to be able to see her, watch her, see if I'm going horribly off the tracks so I can stop myself. So I can keep myself from messing this up more than I already have.

And I want to see Juliette again, actually see her. Watch her smile and - I know _exactly_ what this sounds like - light up the room. Light up me, at least. I need all the light I can get.

If I don't steal a heart, I'll be dead before summer.


	8. Chapter 8

_Fweet!_

"Tuller! Knees up! This is gym class, not spa time!"

My heart shudders. I redouble my efforts to high-knee it accros the gym, the rest of the class eternities ahead of me. A week ago, I could've slept through this, beat my teacher in a crunch battle. Damn my heart. Damn being a Stealer. How does Mother ever deal with this? How can Tia teach Tae Kwon Do when she can barely stand? How can _anyone_ stand having a heart even a tiny percent below normal?

I'm the last to reach the finish line, the first to crumple to my knees, gasping for air that won't come. My heart's telling my lungs to ignore it, pass it up in favour of trying to kill me. Black spots swim in my vision and I settle forwards onto my palms. Heave and heave and heave. Girls mill above me, only slightly out of breath, enough energy to elbow each other and whisper about how little superMaura isn't seeming so super anymore.

They always say that hearing is the last thing to go, and I have to say, whoever 'they' is, they were spot on. I always had better than average senses, the one side effect I could accept about being a Stealer. Over the past few days, ever since the _idiot_ Todd pledged his heart to me, my sight and smell and awareness of things around me have faded to what must be 'normal'. I feel like I've been swaddled in bubble wrap and like I need glasses. Hearing, though, the most annoying of the senses, is still going strong.

Meadhbh always made a game out of it, closing her eyes and calling out our hiding places with uncanny accuracy. She couldn't flip or do a high kick, but by god did she know about every single thing that was going on around her. It was almost creepy, really.

Mother was impressed. But she would be.

A shadow falls over me, and I lift my head, still trying to find oxygen in the slippery air. Ms. Torres is standing over me, hands on her hips, but she isn't angry. She looks like she wants to strap me to a table and take my vitals. "Tuller, are you alright? This isn't like you."

I shove myself back to kneeling upright, head swimming. "Yeah," I croak, but I know it's not convincing.

She shakes her head, ponytail bobbing. "Get up. I'll take you to the office, you can call your parents to pick you up."

Oh god. She _cannot_ call Mother. She'd know what was wrong with me in a second, and I've have to stand her piercing eyes and mantras until I gave in and killed.

Through some inhuman feat of endurance, I pick myself up off the floor, dust myself off. Ms. Torres' steely eyes are watching me, so I try to stop heaving, ignore how every particle of my body is screaming for _more air more air_. "I'm okay, Ms. T. Just a bug. I can stand the rest of the day, just not..." I trail off, gesture wide. The fans on the ceiling spin, flattening my hair, and I wonder if my roots are showing. "this."

She sighs with more gusting power than the twelve fans in the room. "Maura, are you sure?"

I wave a hand. "Yeah, totally. I'll take myself to the doctors office after school," No I won't, "And get myself checked out."

Actually, that's not a bad idea. I can fake a heart disease, forge the doctors notes. It's not _that_ far from the truth. It'll get me out of gym and a premature coronary. I appreciate both of those things.

Ms. T dismisses me to go change, with a muttered, "Go read a book. Or something." I traipse to the change room, pry myself out of the stinky shorts and tee. I'm not too sweaty, since I barely made it through the ten minute warm up, so I skip the shower.

I stand in front of the mirror for a couple embarrassing seconds, making sure that I look presentable. No, that's a lie. Making sure I look pretty.

My roots are starting to show, the dark brown pushing aside the bottle blonde. It falls in waves, hitting the small of my back. I tug my fingers through it a couple times, wincing at the tangled ends and wishing that I actually remembered to pack a comb. My eyes, green, same as my sisters, peer out at me uncertainly.

What am I going to do? My stomach turns, trying to tip it's contents back up my mouth. I look away from the mirror, close my eyes. I can do this. It's just Juliette, just a girl. Not some sort of monster, not someone who wouldn't listen to sense. Not the compilation of worst case scenarios my mind is trying to push at me like they were the ones that made sense.

It's Juliette. Never just. But Juliette.

I can do this.

I scoop up my bag and leave, closing the changing room door softly behind me. The halls are all but empty, the intelligent portion of the students in classes. Only the smokers and socialites linger, the former outside, shivering, the latter clustered in corners and regarding me with suspicious eyes as I hurry by.

I know I probably look incredibly guilty. Nerves do that to you.

I start in the library, flick through books while the librarian snores, head in arms on her desk. They're all the same. Girl isn't normal. Something starts happening. A hot/mysterious boy appears, and that's when I put the book down. Aren't there any books about girl meeting girl? Or even girl just chilling and being awesome on her own?

Why does everything a girl does have to depend on a boy?

I used to love to read, but now I can't bring myself to try new books. They could be amazing, or even great, but there's too much of a chance it'll be horrible and faux-romantic and boring. Why waste the time? If I can hold out, I won't have much left.

I leave before the bell goes off and the librarian wakes. Students are starting to swill around, having dismissed themselves early for 'bathroom breaks'.

I find myself outside the Home Ec. classroom, watching the second period cooks trickle out. I'm pretending to text, hair in my face like a curtain. It's just sheer enough I can see Juliette walk out, smiling, throwing one last comment back through the door. "It _was_ better at fifteen minutes, you have to give me that."

I text a happy face to myself.

There's a mumbled reply about a recipe and how people should follow it, and then Juliette's past me, wearing jeans and a tee for once. Her hair is wild beauty, tumbling down her shoulders. She looks like an angel.

I follow her, trailing a few students behind, not quite ready to confront her. I feel woozy and electrified, terrified and hopeful.

Slowly, as we get closer to her locker, set near the tech offices, the people start to disappear. By the time we've reached her locker, her steps are short and her shoulders are around her ears.

She turns, maybe to confront me or yell or scream, but I'm so close that we're nose to nose. Eye to eye.

And again we're kissing, her hands framing my face and mine flutter for a second before I settle them around her shoulders. We're pressed so close I can feel her heartbeat and mine's thudding off the tracks.

She pulls away to laugh helplessly, tuck her head into the crook of my neck. I lock my arms around her, warm and solid, and I'm laughing too. Her hair is in my face, silky soft and smelling like cinnamon.

"Oh, Maura," she says, fingers ticking the back of my neck, winding into my hair. And again. "Oh, Maura."

Then we're kissing again, lips sliding over each other, and I don't care who can see us, that we're in the middle of school and we still have half a day before freedom.

But it's Juliette. Never just.


	9. Chapter 9

I _get_ why everyone wants a special friend in high school.

It makes you feel special. You can't help but giggle when you catch eyes in class, every moment is loaded. We're starting to get funny looks from the faculty, but neither of us care. They can raise all the eyebrows they want. It's not going to make us stop having the time of our lives.

I almost forget about my fail of a heart until gym class rolls around on Friday. I'd skipped out on Thursday, spent the time applying my forgery skills to a doctors note.

Mother always gave us the _oddest_ lessons. Some days, I wonder if she's trying to mold us into perfect Stealers or perfect criminals. Knowing her, it's likely both.

I don't want to be either. I want to be Juliette's girlfriend, a good sister, top of my gym class. Not sitting with a hand absently on my pulse, trying to look pathetic while Ms. T reads my 'doctor's note'. My hair's still damp from the drizzle that was going on this morning. I'm starting to think I'm going to need to take the bus. My heart is still leaping off cliffs.

I don't know how to take the bus. This is a problem.

"So..." My unflappable gym teacher, more likely to run after you screaming with a pool noodle than allow you to slack off, is in shock. "You're going to get more testing? There's something wrong with your heart?"

I nod, tap along with my heartbeat. Ms. T isn't looking quite at me. Beyond me, somehow. "But you were doing so well." she says, almost to herself. "You were _fine._"

Oh, I know. "It's genetic. Pops up suddenly. I was..." I really was. "Hoping I wouldn't get it." Even though that's completely impossible. All Stealers have daughters. Those daughters are always Stealers.

Maybe if I was a boy. But that's impossible, or nearly so. If I was a boy, I wouldn't exist. So really, there's no way to escape Darwin. Survival of the fittest.

_Kill or be killed._

"I guess you're not going to be participating in Cardio week, then." Ms. T says dryly, and I cough up a laugh and an affirmative. She grins at me for a second, mask back up, then fake frowns. "If you get over yourself, you'll be due for extra classes to catch up. Don't want to lose your edge!"

"Certainly not!" I stand, brush imaginary dust off my legs. It feels awkward to be in jeans and a plaid shirt instead of being one of the crowd in gym shorts and shirts. To their credit, they _are_ trying not to stare.

"Read some books for me!" My gym teacher tells me, and then I'm outside the steel doors, hearing the whistle reverberate off the walls inside. The hall smells about as bad as the gym, so I get out as quickly as I can. Shoes squeak and basketballs boom behind me. Or maybe it's thunder. I can't quite tell.

So much for the superhearing. It was good while it lasted.

It feels like cheating to have a free period in grade ten. It's a waste of time to be chilling in the library, reading. Reading is great, when I have the patience for it, sure, but when I'd normally be working out my stress in gym class? Say hello to antsy.

Which is really great, because you know what's really bad for your heart? Yeah. Stress. Which makes this a really awesome feedback loop.

My jittery feet carry me out to the main foyer, not quite as dingy as the rest of the school; likely because it's the one place every visitor is guaranteed to see. There's concrete benches scattered around the edges, studded with stone that looks great and makes it feel like you're sitting on gravel. Everything's grey or off-white besides the banner advertising improv tryouts in a week and the Canadian flag. And the windows, of course. All three of them. Two in the doors and one up so high it puts the 'sky' meaning in 'skylight'.

The sky's a horrible angry grey. I sigh.

My phone buzzes, and immediately, I've forgotten everything.

JULIETTE: Hope you're having tons of fun in gym *snickers*

JULIETTE: See you in History!

I wince. Juliette doesn't know. Can't know. How could I tell her, _Hey, Jul, by the way, my mother is a mass murderer and I'm almost one too but if I don't, I die._

How can I _not_ tell her? _Sorry, Juliette. Can't go to the movies with you. Why? Because walking there would give me a heart attack. Oh, right, didn't I tell you? I have a heart condition. Yes, I'm going to die. Please don't break up with me?_

Everything goes black.

I shriek, and it takes a second of freaking out and wondering if A) my eyes have given out or B) I acquired a useful superpower before C) I realize that the power's gone out and that I would be very well suited as an actress. I'm clearly enough of a drama queen.

_If you survive that long._

I scrape my hair into a bun, wriggle a pencil through it. I hadn't realized how heavy it was until now, over-bleached ends tickling the edge of my face.

Classrooms bang open on either sides of the foyer, voices spilling out into the darkness. I'm squinting, trying to figure out what the heck's going on when I hear it again.

At first, I think it's thunder. But it's too steady.

**Ba-dum. Ba-dum.**

Oh, my god. Can Todd not leave me alone? I admit, the date _was_ mixed signals, but I have been extremely clear on both the Gay and the Stay Away fronts for the past few days.

To be fair, it's dark as heck and it's probably impossible for him to know that I'm the dark shadow slouched against the bench. Unless there's some sort of magnetic property trying to Return To Owner.

His heart needs to butt out.

I flee. Todd's heartbeat pounding counter to mine is almost helpful, like a reverse game of Hot-Cold. In my case, the hot is DANGER TODD DANGER HEART and the cold is AWAY. I want to be colder than Mr. Dunbar's view of grade ten academia.

Students are everywhere, emergency lights making everyone wan. There's an undercurrent of fear in the crowd that kick up a notch with every crash of thunder. Faintly, I can hear the wind whining against the walls.

Well. This has been well and great, but I think it's high time I find Juliette. I fight my way up current, trying to find the Home Ec room. Faces bob past me, pale, pale, pale, short, boy. No sign of her.

Then there's a hand in mine, and I snap my head around and she's there, grinning over at me like it's just another day at school. Her glasses are gleaming in the dull light. "Hey, Maura."


	10. Chapter 10

I tug on her hair as we walk, her arm around my waist. Her dress is blue today, I think, a lovely sort of teal like oceans and cold currents. It's swinging against my legs as we turn back to the current. Teachers wave papers and folders and metre sticks, directing us to the gigantic main gym. It's so _springy_, dark and coiled in on itself. The opposite of my horribly frizzy, damaged, should-be-brown mane.

"You know," Juliette says lightly, though I can feel how tight she's holding on to me. "If you like dark hair so much, you could just grow out yours."

I make a face, toss her hair back to her, settle my arm over her shoulders. She's warm, heat pouring off her skin like a furnace, and I feel like the arctic in comparison. My heart isn't exactly keeping me as warm as I'd like. "Blondes have all the fun, Mother always says."

Juliette slides me an odd look. Someone jostles me, I shoot them a poisonous glare. "What, you died your hair because your mother wanted you to?"

"Yeah, I sup-" and ow, that minor niner has sharp elbows. "Ow!"

A tap on my cheek, and I turn back, almost frown. Juliette looks actually _concerned_. "Did you even want blonde hair?"

I shrug without shoulders. I don't tend to think much about it. It's as normal to me as Mother coming home at odd hours with her face filling back out, crowing the details of her victory to her rapt audience of my younger sisters. "Eh. It's not terrible. At least I match my family."

What I don't say: it doesn't matter, either way, because if I don't steal hearts, I'm dead before I can grow my hair out enough to matter.

But that doesn't cut it, not for her. She winds her arm off my waist, tugs out the pencil, combs through my hair. "Why don't you grow it out?" A small smile. "You'd rock a pixie cut."

I take her hand from where it hovers over my ear, weave our fingers together. "A pixie cut? Me?" I don't have to fake the shudder. I've spent so long growing out my hair, fought so hard to get it here, that it almost feels like half of me. The good half. The half that doesn't hear Todd's heartbeat in her ears.

I nestle into Juliette, hide my face in her hair, take in the cinnamon scent and try to ignore how my free hand's clenched so tight my nails are breaking skin, the horror-movie drums in my ears.

"Hey," she says softly, squeezes my hand back. I can't see anything from behind the curtain of her hair, but I know she's smiling at me. "It's just a thunderstorm."

Todd's arm hits mine just as the next thundershock detonates. Someone screams, and I'm not entirely sure it isn't me. I cling to Juliette like a lifeline, and her hand twines in my hair, still looking lovely and concerned. "Maura?"

Todd is still here. Feet away. It's all I can do not to lunge for him. I can feel our heartbeats in counter tempo, my weak to his strong. Thunder rolls, Juliette pulling me close because she thinks I'm scared. She is the best girlfriend there ever is.

I don't look up until we're in the gym, when Todd's heart has drifted away. The principal is on the stage, pencil skirt impossibly ironed, hair practically standing on end. Juliette's thumb is circling on the back of my hand, warmth running up my arm and into my heart.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the whole gym seems to say. I didn't think they'd be able to talk to us without a sound system, but the principal has an impressive set of lungs. And good acoustics. "Due to the power failure, you will be sent home when the storm ends."

I see. They aren't going to try and corral smelly teenagers into rooms without moving air. Plus, the internet's out, so there would be no placated classes in computer labs. Basically, without electricity, this place is a boredom death trap.

"Hey," Juliette whispers, and the boring principal is forgotten. "My mother isn't home till about eight? We could watch a movie." She taps the back of my hand, fingers playing along my wrist. I can feel my pulse, racing and stuttering, though it's Juliette's fault instead of my failing heart, this time.

"Did you miss the power outage?" I mutter back through her cloud of hair. She elbows me, and I can't help it — I _giggle_. "What? You're saying you have a magical TV?"

"Laptop, silly goose, if the outage really stretches all the way to my house." She weaves our fingers together, perfectly interlocking. Her hands are warm and my whole arm feel alive and buzzing with just the right kind of electricity. "A date without coffee and drama?"

I grin at her, tuck a curl behind her ear. Her eyes are dark pools in the dim light, sparkling. My voice goes chocolatey and smooth. "Trying to ask me out, are you?"

"Who, me?" We're both leaning in, and this time, we're both smiling. "I think I am."

We barely brush lips before the person behind us coughs meaningfully and I cuddle into her side instead, trying to pay attention to the principal again. Juliette's laughing silently, shivering against my side and this is what I've always wanted.

Forget storybook romance, boy meets girl and they fall in love. That's not star-crossed. That's overdone. And for me, it could never be permanent. It would have been girl meets boy, boy falls in love with girl, and girl kills boy. Wash, rinse, repeat for eternity. This is truer than that.

I don't have to kill a girl. I don't even think I _can_ steal a girl's heart. Mother always said Stealers were a revenge against mankind, the way men made human history about themselves. We were the solution to the worst of them, women warriors to take down egos and hearts. Girls were us. We don't have any bones to pick with them. So we don't.

I kiss Juliette's cheek and rest my head on her shoulder.


	11. Chapter 11

We're finally released from the school thirty minutes after the last roll of thunder. _It's the rules,_ they tell us, _so that you don't get hit by lightning and we have to fill out oodles of paperwork. Save the trees._

It's still raining, water pelting down from the heavens. I've always thought rain was amazing — it seems to come from everywhere overhead like the sky really is falling. It's the sort of wonderful grey I always think of from Juliette's poem, the potential of storm and calm all at once, the wind pulling my hair off my forehead and into the air.

We're dashing for the main street, backpacks forgotten in lockers, giggling like maniacs. Our hands are locked between us, stretched wide because we're dorks and running with our arms out, crashing through puddles so we're soaked from above and below.

Of course, I shriek and practically do a dive into a puddle but Juliette yanks me back and I spin into her arms. Rain pelts down on our heads, my hair flat and hers shedding waters she leans in.

The kiss is soft and wet and cold, tasting like rain and April. When I step back, I do a funny little bow. "May I have this dance, milady?"

I know it's not ordinary, but who ever loved ordinary? Girls dance with boys, not each other.

But I'm not ordinary. I should get to have the good side of weird, too.

Juliette's hands go to her mouth, like she's from some sort of ancient movie, flattered and surprised. Her cheeks are flushed dark. Then she grins too, offering her hand. I spin her, dress flying out like the sky's fallen down to earth. Then we clasp hands, tango down the sidewalk, pressed close and giggling. I'm leading because she can barely see, glasses speckled with a hundred thousand tiny raindrops.

I wonder if it looks like rainbows, if the light bends through the water into colour. I wonder if I'll need glasses.

Left and right and turn and twist. The few other students that have braved the weather are staring, but Juliette can't tell and I don't care. We're flush, clothes slicked against our bodies like they're just water, dripping off. She's warm like she always is, warm and solid and dancing, hips swinging, hair curling. She's a whirling dervish; the prettiest one there ever was.

I almost fall face first into a puddle when she dips me, spinning and holding on with all her might as I flail and babble, head spinning. Then I'm back on my feet and even though there's no music, we're waltzing to the same beat. Turning, her arm around my waist, my hand cupping the side of her neck.

It's slow, eye to eye, leg to leg, hip to hip. Swaying slowly towards home. We don't say anything. We don't need to. Left, and sway. Right, and sway.

I don't know what love feels like, _real_ love, not the sort for crazy little sisters or insane mothers. The one that burns hotter and can burn out in a second. The one that's like sitting with your back to the fire and your side to something warmer, a cold window at your back.

When I look into Juliette's eyes I feel like Romeo. Only less doomed, maybe.

For Maura and Juliette, only Maura dies.

"Maura," Juliette says. "I think you're crying."

I can feel the tears scorching down my cheeks, even though I'm still smiling. "It's just the rain."

The side of her mouth quirks up. "Sure, Maura." She tugs me in for one last kiss, and I can't tell where she starts and I end because the rain is washing away our seams. 


	12. Chapter 12

We're dripping and shivering and frozen when we reach Juliette's house. It's dark and warm, and even though nobody's home the lights are on in the kitchen and hall.

"Told you the power'd be back on," Juliette tells me, trying to towel off her hair. Water sparkles a trail from her feet to the bathroom, but we've been trying to get the minimum amount of water on the floor because, as Juliette mimicked, "Don't you pay _attention_? Water _warps_ the _floor_! Kids these days..."

The towel's not doing much besides making my hair have a panic attack. Some days, I wish I had never dyed my hair. I scrub a couple more times, ignoring the knots.

Juliette's already done, her hair springing back to normal. "Borrow a dress?" A grin. "Just like old times."

"Thanks," I say gratefully. My flannel and jeans are soaked to the skin, and I'm trying not to shiver but it isn't working. "Just like old times except for one tiny thing."

She raises an eyebrow, lobs the towel at me. Gems of water gleam along the edge of her bared shoulders. "Oh? And what's that?" Another eyebrow wiggle. "Your crazy hair, perhaps?"

"Yeah, totally," and our hands are pressed close, fingers woven. The kiss is short and sweet and Juliette tastes like rain. I'm still smiling like a fool when she runs off to get us dry clothes. I flap the towels out over my head and shoulders, make ghost noises when I hear her footsteps patter down the stairs.

"I'm the ghost of Gay Past," I say eerily. Wave my arms like I'm trying to haunt her, even though the towels are thick and brick red. "This just in: we're both veeeeeery gaaaaaay."

"What?" Juliette could never be an actress. She can't stop herself from giggling. "Really?"

Channelling Dracula, I lift the towels off my face. Waggle my eyebrows, face straight. "Indeed. It was a surprise to literally..." I pause for dramatic effect and more eyebrow wiggling. My forehead is starting to ache. "_Nobody_."

Juliette can't hold in her belly laughter anymore, and she flings her arms around my neck, and I let myself laugh too. She's incredibly loud next to my ear but I can't bring myself to care, and really, I'm cackling even louder. Not as sweetly.

Then the power flicks out again. We both groan.

Juliette is the first to pull back, and she hands me one of her dresses. She's damp all down the front now from hugging soggy me. "Bathrooms-"

"-down the hall to the left. I know." I heft the towels. "Where do these go?"

"I'll take them." She does. "Run along now, you big drip."

I wring my hair out in her direction as I scuttle past. "Drip _this_!"

"Maura!" she says, exasperated and fond, and I cackle.

It's easy to change into a dress, without buttons or separate tubes to shove your legs into. I can see the appeal of wearing dresses.

I follow the sound of plastic crackling and Juliette muttering to the kitchen. She's digging through the freezer like it holds the secret of the universe.

"Aha!" She slams it shut, holding up a _gigantic_ ziploc bag of sugar cookies. Juliette glances up over the top of her fogged glasses, looks almost guilty. "Hey, Maura." Her eyes peruse me, head to foot, warmth bubbling along my skin. "That dress looks amazing on you."

I don't even have to look down to say with complete honesty: "It looks better on you." Juliette has curves and cocoa dark skin that glows in all but the harshest lights. She has a dusky beauty I can't ever hope to match with thighs that rub and obvious roots in my bleached blonde hair.

"No, you." Juliette rattles the bag of cookies at me. "You don't get any cookies until you admit that the dress looks awesome."

Cheater. Playing on the love of sugar, eh? "Fine. The dress looks great." I don't. I walk my hand over the fridge, making a not-so-sneaky grab for the bag.

Juliette rolls her eyes, flings the bag at my face. I stumble backwards for real because man, that is a _lot_ of heavy, frozen cookies. "Ouch! Assaulting me with sugar cookies!" I stick out my tongue. "What's next? A kiss battl-"

The idea is too much for Juliette to pass up. She's cupping my cheek in her hand and tilting in for a long, slow kiss. I'm laughing through her lips by the time I lean back to take a bite from the sugar cookie.

More laughter. The power flicks back on. Everything seems different when you can see it - the freezer's puffing out clouds of frozen vapour and Juliette's hair looks almost halo'd with wet slicked curls.

"So," she says, popping a cookie of her own in her mouth. "What do you want to watch?"

"_Not_ Hercules," I say fervently, chuck the bag of cookies onto the kitchen table. "It is _so inaccurate_. Hera isn't his mother, she hates him! And Hades has literally nothing to do with it and-"

"Hey!" She's grinning, though, sprinkles stuck around the corners of her mouth. Reaches for the bag again. "It's Disney! Which you _still_ need to watch. The Lion King, then?"

I pretend to hit my head against the fridge. "Noooo. Hercules made me lose all faith in Disney." A sneaky side glance, enough to catch the fond head shaking. "Not that I had any faith in the first place."

Juliette hits me with the bag of sugar cookies. "Take that back! Disney is awesome!"

I try to fend off the blows while still eating my own cookie. I'm spraying crumbs and still get hit. My heart's thudding along like usual, the spike in adrenaline just enough to bring it up to normal levels. I pretend it's not worrying. "Ow! No! Never!"

We're face to face. She's squinting in half-real irritation. Her lips are distracting. Her eyes. Her everything. Warmth spills back into my chilled skin from inches away. I can smell the sugar cookies on her breath, the cinnamon of her shampoo.

"Take that back," she says, deadly as a dream.

I stare for an endless moment, memorizing the curve of her cheek, her bright eyes, her lips, until she blinks at me and says, "You're not even going to pretend that you're arguing, are you?"

"Disney sucks?" I offer, but really, I'm thinking that Juliette is way too cute to be arguing and that if this keeps up, I'm going to become _such_ a pushover.

I am such a pushover, who am I kidding.

My heart thumps, and I sigh. "Fine. _Fine_, meanie. We can watch Disney."

Juliette positively _crows_. Ducks away and sprints for the TV room, like she thinks I'm going to change my mind. "Ha! I knew you'd give in!"

"Only for you!" I call after her. My heart skips a beat. Again, softly. "Only for you."


	13. Chapter 13

"Your hands," Juliette says, despairingly, "are _freezing_." She chafes them between her delicate ones. "What's with that?"

"Heart problems?" I say, then try to focus back on the Disney. Simba is being thoroughly trounced by Nala. "Ha! Take that, twit."

"Heart?" Juliette says, and her fingers are steel bands around mine. "Maura?"

I want to say that it's nothing, say that I don't know why I said that, say it was a joke, but I catch her eyes and they're worse than when I told her about my hair. "Weak heart, yeah. It's..." _killing me_ "no big deal."

"No big deal?" She repeats, movie forgotten. She's leaning almost into my lap, serious dark eyes inches from mine. "Hey, Maura. Don't give me that."

It's not like Meadhbh falling asleep on my shoulder, Mab yelling at Jeopardy, elbowing me. Juliette is solid and present and it's not just something to accept and dismiss. She's wonderful. I'm nestled into her side, close as I can get.

"Hey," she says, and it isn't so kind this time. "Maura, you can't just pretend you didn't hear me. You can't pretend that everything is nothing. Either you talk to me, or you leave."

"Leave? Juliette-"

She draws back and it's awful, cold and bereft. "I just want to know you, Maura. You're always smiling and brushing things off and you _can't_ just do that."

Muted voices spill from the television, light washing over us in colours and shapes. My hand looks ghostly, freezing and alone. "I- I... It's just... Juliette, I don't know what to tell you."

"You could start," she says, "at the beginning. Or the truth. All I know is that you're miserable and you're trying to pretend you're not and that's not the start of anything good." Our hands weave back together, the concession she's making to connection. "And I want this to be good, Maura."

"So do I," It's the truest thing I can tell her. I don't want this to go the way of Mother's tales and warnings. Not to ever fall in love. I'm so scared that this is love, and it's ridiculous because I've only known her since halfway through grade nine, only let myself see her for a few weeks.

Maybe it's because I know it's fall hard and fall fast or don't fall at all. Mother tells me of the last good day, about this far in. When you feel almost fine, but you're actually almost done. It's downhill from here.

"It's hereditary." I tell her eventually, clinging to her hand as a lifeline. Each word is against Mother and common sense. "Kick in around sixteen. I'll get weaker and weaker until..."

My eyes tell her all she needs to know.

"No," she breathes. Juliette's caught between horror and disbelief. "That can't be right. You were fine. You were top of your class in gym."

"It's sudden." Mythically sudden. Something you didn't want to believe until it was too late. A legend of death and stolen hearts. "A month after it starts you're bedridden." A snort. "Unless you're more stubborn than even Mother."

I wonder if Meadhbh will be able to last it. If I want her too. Mab is so close to maturity, it's easy to imagine her ruthless. Meadhbh is ten, a child. J can't imagine her saying the words, getting the pledge. If she would smile.

"Isn't..." Her voice falters. I don't think she knows how tight she's holding my hands. My bones shift and ache. "Is t there anything you can do?"

"One thing," I allow. "It's horrible and painful and illegal, but it's curable. Mother cured it. My sisters probably will."

Definitely Mab. She's a miniature Mother in a kinder skin. _Boys are for hearts, girls are for fun. Who pledges their heart to an ugly girl? Nobody. That's who. If they say the words, they're yours._

"A transplant?" Juliette says, desperately, And there's a look in her eyes that I've seen far too often in the mirror. Hopelessness, but you scrabble for something anyway. Something. Anything. But there's nothing to find.

I shake my head, see her heart break. "Doesn't work. Our systems reject it."

I think it's me that tears up first. My face is scorching again, tears leaving angry trails. Juliette is a champion crier, tears welling and sparkling around her eyes. She leans in, pressing our foreheads together. Her hands cradle my face, mine fisted in the blankets as I try so hard not to cry.

"Hey," Juliette says, and I open my eyes. Simba is failing epically in the distance. Juliette is smiling, through willpower and tears. She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. "How about dye, then?"

"Dye?"

A little shrug. I let go of the blankets, one curled finger at a time. "If you're not going to grow it out, you could at least dye it back to brown."

The fact that I don't have the time left to grow it out doesn't need to be spoken.

I cough out a laugh instead of a sob, this once. "You're wonderful, Juliette."

"Hey, I knew that." She says, and latches her arms so tight around me I can hardly breathe. I try to memorize her hair, tickling my face, the cocoa beauty of her skin, her shuddering breaths.

Just in case this is the last time.

* * *

I'm up horrifically early the next morning. There's a weight lifted off my chest after telling Juliette, even it wasn't the whole truth. I'm practically bouncing, looking forwards to seeing her.

But that means going to school. And that means walking. I'm going to give myself at least another half hour to get there - my heart's going crazy after the couple blocks even on a good day.

Today isn't a good day. My hands feel like I slept in a freezer. They're shaking, just enough that I knock over the hot chocolate mix. I don't have the willpower to clean it up. Sleep clings to my arms and head, fuzzy and draining. I don't feel like eating anything, but I force down a hot chocolate anyway. Dawn's crackling at the horizon as I step outside, cocooned in flannel.

As much as I despise mornings and alarms and everything else about waking up early, I can't help but being oddly fond of dawn. It's not really the start of a day. Just the start of light, spilling pink and orange ink through the clouds as darkness creeps in on the other side of the world. It's not a start: it's a change, a reminder of the relentless turn of the earth. You can't stop time, no matter how much you want to. You can't stay in the night. You can't stay fifteen forever. The universe drags you forward into daylight and adulthood and death.

There's always something quietly beautiful about it, too. Like the breathtaking sunrise and sky pastels above me, a million times more startling than the chill in the air and my fingers. There's something beautiful about being sixteen, too. Juliette. Never just.

I'm smiling, and that's when I fall. It's twisted and awkward and fast, and everything spins above me, streaks of sunrise red swirling above me as back spots dance. My shoulder hits a fire hydrant with the force of an exploding supernova, pops and rolls and hits the curb before I can do anything more than scream.

My pain echoes off the buildings around me, hollow sounding against the dawn and deserted streets. It feels like lightning in my shoulder, the pain only growing as I roll onto the other shoulder, breath and screams rattling in and out of my ribs. There's a monster eating me and my mouth gapes in a silent scream as it moves to my heart.

Black eats away at the sunrise, and I whimper. Pain slips between my clenched teeth in whines and gasps as I try to think of anything but the pain. My heart is seizing and shaking, doing anything but beating.

My shoulder is on fire for a split second, then it's just a dull ache and I pull in a deep breath, my lungs screaming for air.

My fingers are clumsy, like icicles glued at the joints, but I manage to reach my phone, prop myself against the fire hydrant. The sun peeps through the edge of the clouds, shadows stretching out.

I dial by memory, press the phone to my ear. It slips twice before I sandwich it with my shoulder. Which is still aching.

"Hello?" Mab says. "Sister mine? What are you doing up?"

I close my eyes. "I fell," I whisper, try to steady my breathing, my heart. "Broke my arm. It healed, but I feel like about to pass out."

I almost can't believe my own words. It feels like I'm watching a show, a movie. I was going to go to school. I was going to kiss my girlfriend. I was going to _live_.

One careless step, and the sun rises, towing death with it.

"Maura?" Mab's saying, shrill and faint. "Maura. Stay with me. Where are you?"

"Block west of my apartment," I manage to say. "Fire hydrant."

"Stay where you are," Mab says. "Stay there. Stay with-"

I hang up, fumble my icicle fingers to my contacts.

I delete Juliette.


	14. Chapter 14

I don't remember Mother arriving. Faintly, I do remember being towed to my feet, Mab so much taller than just months ago, trying so hard not to cry.

I don't remember the car ride. I don't remember getting into bed. But I must have, because when I open my eyes again, it's to the ceiling of my home. The room where I grew up. The crazy mansion in Toronto, shared with mother (when she deigned to grace us with her presence), Mab, Meadhbh, Tia, and Tia's one year old. I think she's named after a flower; I can't quite remember.

Meadhbh turned her room maroon and gold, the artsy little girl, but I've left mine beige. Never saw the point in decorating if I was always going to move out.

Someone clears their throat - pointedly - and I jump. As much as I can. Which is a twitch. My heart gives a startled thump, the first so far I've felt. I don't know if it hasn't been beating or it's just so faint I haven't noticed. Neither option is good.

It's Mab. She looks awful, dark circles under her eyes, hair a tumbled mess. Nothing like the put-together sister I've seen every other day of my life. Mab hasn't broken down like this in _years_.

I did this to her. I shattered her.

"Sister mine?" she says, voice young and tiny. "You're awake? You're okay?"

I open my arms, and she falls into me, arms wrapped so tight I can feel her heart, steady and strong, beating against my chest. Her fingers, warm unlike mine, tangle in my hair.

"Sister mine," she says again, helplessly. Sits back up, patting at her eyes. "Oh, Maura. You dyed your hair."

Like that is the most important part of me, lying dying. I don't begrudge her a distraction.

"Hey," I say, and I _hate_ how scratchy my voice. Mab lunges for a pitcher of water, a glass, spilling crystal droplets everywhere. A folded paper slides of the table, sharp black ink scratched across the top. "Mother said blondes have more fun, but how was I supposed to know if I never tried being brunette?"

Mab chokes on swallowed tears and a chuckle, hands me a glass. My hand shaking oh-so-slightly, I chug it down. There's lemon in the water. Mab must've squeezed it for me. She knows I love the little touches.

Juliette knew that too. Holding hands. Curling up next to each other on the sofa, blankets twining our legs together. Making me watch Disney and laughing at my horror. Not a big gesture, like poetry on the first date. Not anything enough to scare me away.

_Juliette_. She won't know where I am. Nobody will contact her, I made sure of that. I wiped her from my phone because I don't want to know what Mab and Mother would think of her. A committed relationship? L.... love. That's not in the cards for a Stealer. Even if it's a girl.

Mab' still pretending she isn't crying, swiping at her eyes and it's a special sort of hell because I remember all too well how much she'd complained about not being able to cry on command. For Mab, right now, this is genuine pain. Genuine tears. I reach for her hand, hold tight.

Ignore how cold my fingers are, how Mab almost flinches.

"Where's Meadhbh?" I ask. "Mother?"

A gulp, a long shuddering breath. Mab folds her other hand around mine. There's a sudden flashback to every deathbed scene in every movie ever. I take a deep breath.

"Mother is..." Mab hesitates, but I know what that means.

"Gone?" I supply. Nod at the paper. My heart picks up a stuttering beat, worse than anything I've ever felt. It's truly offbeat and off kilter and just plain _off_. I want to hit my chest until it ticks back to normal. "The letter's from her, isn't it?"

Another nod. Mab's unwilling to let go. "Meadhbh's forbidden from seeing you until... until you're feeling better."

Better? There's no way to make this better. I'd made up my mind, curled against the fire hydrant, hands shaking as I erased any sign of my girlfriend from my phone.

If I can't bear to let Juliette know what I really am, what my family really is, there's no way I want to be that... that _thing_. If I can't be honest to the person that matters the most about my heart, then there is something horribly wrong. If I'm ashamed and scared, then it's time to change.

And if changing means dying, well, so be it. I won't murder anyone to live for just one more month. Hundreds of lives are not worth my one.

"No," my mouth says without permission. Mab looks like I've hit her. "No," I say again. "I can't. I'm not going to be able to get better, sister mine. I'm so sorry."

"What? What? Maura, no, it always works. You can _live_." She's shaking her head, her unwashed hair tumbling in golden waves, framing her tear-streaked cheeks. "You can _live_. Sister mine, don't die on me."

"I can't." Saying it makes my heart worse. Even though I know its just a trick of the mind. "I can't, Mab. I won't."

She lets go like my hand is burning, nearly knocks her stool over in her haste. "No. _No_. That's not true. It always works. I'll- I'll help you." Mab dips, tosses me the letter. "I'll be back. I promise, sister mine. I won't let you die."

And she's gone before more than a "Mab!" can escape.

I sigh. Close my eyes, try not to feel like my heart is trying to sink out of my chest. My fingers curl into a fist. She isn't _getting_ it. Mab isn't _listening._

I don't think she can. Mother is her true north, the way her moral compass leads. I'm south, rotating just that far away. She never follows me unless I've proven I've got the better option.

Dying isn't that better option. She'll try her hardest to save me.

How can you tell your little sister that you don't want to be saved?

Mother's letter is a lead weight, leaning against my thigh. It's hard, fingers iced and shaking, but I unfold it. Mother's letters are sharp, spiked, like she wants to stab me straight through the page.

_Maura,_

_I am disappointed in you._

_Your first hunt was a failure. Your ten year old sister is more cunning than you. What sort of message are you sending your little sisters? Do you want them to turn soft, wither away like you are? You are responsible for this disaster. The school has emailed me about your 'heart problems'. You should have **never** told them that. How did you expect to inform them that you were miraculously cured?_

_You are a failure as a Stealer. I hope you're proud of yourself._

_I have withdrawn you from the school. When I get back from the conference in Timbuktu, I expect to see you up and about. Mab, the poor child, has taken responsibility for you. She will conduct this hunt on your behalf. I expect you to make this up to her in every way possible. She needs a college fund. You, clearly, do not, judging by your abject disregard of anything resembling intelligence._

_Clearly, I have coddled you. You didn't know the reality of the world. I'll have to fix that in your sisters. I expect you to help me. You need to undo this damage. I suggest starting at the bottom - you._

_Get your act together,_

_Mother._

My heart thumps dully, my jaw swinging loose, my breath frozen in my lungs. Tears threaten, and I swallow again and again until the lump in my throat is near manageable.

I don't know what I expected. Sympathy, maybe? A list of chores. Disappointment, definitely. But... this almost seems like loathing. Pure hostility. Abhorrence. I always knew Mother thought her eldest daughter was the runt of the bunch, but this is really something.

Deliberately, I tear it in half. Then again, and again, until the paper is confetti. I attempt to blow it off the bed, but don't have enough breath.

Someone giggles, and I snap about. Meadhbh's in the door, short and adorable, like a baby princess out of a fairytale. Her green eyes are the brightest out of all of us. Her hair is scraped back into a severe braid. Mother's work, probably. Her braids always hurt like hell.

"Hey, maybe baby," I say, a grin spreading across my face. Meadhbh scowls, her forehead wrinkling and her eyes hardening to emerald. "Maybe baby," I repeat, a little louder.

Meadhbh sighs with enough gusto to flutter the confetti, scampers closer. Her hands are behind her back, her eyes furtive. My grin spreads wider.

"Sister mine," she says, sounding oddly formal, and I have to try _so hard_ not to giggle. "Maura." It sounds like Mow-rah, which is even funnier than her saying _sister mine._

"Yes, Meadhbh?"

She hops up onto the bed, brushing the confetti off. I know that she knows that it was Mother's letter, but she doesn't say anything. Meadhbh fidgets, finally catches my eyes. "I, um," she says. "drew something for you?"

Oooh. I love Meadhbh's drawings. They're always in crayon, but that makes them sound sillier than they actually are. They're gorgeous, if not always anatomically accurate. If she wasn't a Stealer, she'd go to art school for _sure_.

Another thing Mother has stolen from her.

She offers it, and I take it, careful not to crumble the edges.

Or get tears on it. It's the three of us, Meadhbh, Mab, and Maura, arms around each other. My nose is lumpier than it should be, Mab's eyes larger than they should be, Meadhbh without a neck. But that doesn't matter. I can see _us_ shining through it; the pencil in Meadhbh's hair, Mab's mischievous smile, the roots of my hair. It's sisters as she knows us.

I'm sitting up even though my chest feels like it's cracking at the seams, my arms around Meadhbh, her little furnace, her hair smelling like salt and citrus shampoo. Meadhbh clings to me, her breaths short and shuddering. She always knows more than we give her credit for.

"Maura?" she says, voice quivering. "Are you going to die?"

"I don't know, sister mine," I say, hands running down her back, trying to stall her tears. Even though I know all too well. "I don't know."

She nods against my neck, but doesn't let go.

"Even if I do," I say, voice cracking straight down the middle. "Even if I do, sister mine, will you do something for me?"

She nods again, and something wet hits my neck. I squeeze her tighter, like I can keep all this from happening to her. Like I can save her from all the horrible things to come. "Remember me, sister mine? Can you promise that? Don't forget me. Remember me, sweetheart."

Meadhbh nods again, and I hear her gasp in a breath, hold it. Gasp. Hold. Until her tears stop. Then she pulls back, eyes red but clear. "I'll do that," she says, heartbreakingly serious for such a small girl. "I'll remember you, Maura. I'll remember as long as I can." I see her gulp again, steel herself. "If you can't do the remembering yourself, I'll do it for you."

My throat burns, heart curls in on itself. I manage not to cry until Meadhbh scurries out, braid swinging behind her. And when I do, I make sure to keep the drawing safe.


	15. Chapter 15

I wake suddenly and blearily, someone pounding on my door.

"Ngh?" I say, and the door bursts open. It's Mab, and what looks like a school's worth of geek squad behind her. Each guy is white and skinny with wire rimmed glasses, slender fingers tapping codes against their thighs. There's a single girl, a foot shorter, glasses bright purple. She looks the exact opposite of Juliette, pale and afraid.

"Ngh?" I say, with more confusion.

Mab grins with wild abandon and something like terror. "Maura! I know that you're feeling down after your operation," What? "so I got the poetry club to write you a special something!"

Oh, god. Oh god no. She _isn't_-

"Maura, Maura, Maura," they chant, scarily in unison.

"Heard that you been feeling down

So we decided to be your clown!

Your heart isn't so great

But we got you there, just wait

You can have our hearts

As long as you promise to do your parts."

I thought Todd pledging was bad. That was nothing. That was a refreshing breeze. That was the eye of the storm. That was peaceful. Tears leak again, my hand clenched, nails digging into the scabs from the brush with Todd in the storm. Pain bursts from every atom. I am on fire.

"Maura?" Mab sounds worried, because she doesn't know, _can't_ know, what this is like. It would be agony, torture, torment, even if I wasn't determined to keep my heart in my chest and their hearts in theirs.

"Thank you," I breathe. My hands are fists then flat, fists then flat, reaching. I try to make it look like I'm waving them off. It probably looks like a beckon. "But I'd like to be alone."

"Maura!" Mab snaps out. To the club. "No. Stay. Read it again."

"No!" and it's a war, between the girl who brought them and the girl they think they're helping. They look like lost sheep. I can't decide which of us is the wolf. I say again, "Go!"

"Again!"

"Please!" I beg. My head is spinning. My hands are burning. Blood streaks the blankets from how hard my nails have dug into my palms. "Go!"

That spurs them, and as one, the poetry club flees. Mab calls after them, desperate, but they're gone. Mab teeters, her eyes past the corner, running after them in her mind. But then she doesn't. Heavily, she sits, running a hand through her hair. It goes straight back to bed-head level tousled.

"Maura," my tired sister says, and it sounds like a prayer. "Sister mine, why did you send them away?"

"I told you," I manage to tell her, my heart thudding out of my chest. Black spots dance, like raindrops, glittering on Juliette's face. I blink and blink and blink, but still they swim, growing slowly. "I can't."

Hearts pound in my ears, my stomach swooping. They're all different, all accelerated. Mine's in there too, somewhere, and I can barely breathe. The poetry club isn't leaving nearly fast enough.

"Cant?" Mab sounds like she's inhaled helium, desperate and shrill. "_Can't_? What does that mean, Maura?"

"I can't," I tell her again, black almost completely clouding my vision. My hands are shaking, adrenaline crashing into the pit of my stomach, mouth tasting like iron and electricity and blood. "I can't, I can't, I can't."

I'm seeing Juliette again, still and eyes closed, staying as I fled in terror. I don't deserve her, the way she forgave me. I can never deserve her. She's amazing, and I'm dead or a monster. There's no winning. There's no happy ending. There's only ruined love and ruined lives.

I wonder if it's ever possible for a Stealer to have a long, happy life. I never met my Stealer grandmother; she died, a few years before I was born. Somehow, I can't help but suspect Mother. I don't know how long Stealers _can_ live, if they never stop killing. Mother is about seventy, and she looks maybe forty. An attractive forty. Apparently stealing the hearts of innocents does wonders for the skin.

I wonder if it's ever possible for a Stealer to love. I do. But then again, I'm not really a Stealer. I haven't stolen anyone's heart. I haven't killed. I haven't been able to bring myself to prolong my life when it means the truncation of someone else's.

_Get your act together,_ Mother had told me.

Alright then. I will. No more muttering, no more feeble "I can't" 's. From now on, it's the truth, the real truth, and nothing but the truth.

I breathe through the blackness, Mab's voice fading in and out around me. "...was it the poem? I can..."

"...springing it on you..."

"...sleeping? Sister mine, are you asleep? Maura!" Dimly, I can feel her shaking my arm, shouting. "Maura! Maura, oh god, wake up. Wake up. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

With strength I didn't know I had, I open my eyes. Mab's hovering over me, hair tickling my cheeks. She's crying again. It's nothing like the girl she's supposed to be, the girl Mother thinks she is. The bright eyed murderess with the heart of many and the soul of Jack the Ripper. But all this girl can do is cry and promise me a salvation that I don't want

"Maura!" Mab clutches my hand again, tries to wipe away her tears. I try to smile. She takes ragged gulps of air. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. What's wrong?" She tucks a wayward strand of hair behind my ear, so, so gentle. Like I'm made of glass. "Tell me what to do."

Don't bring the poetry club by, for one. That took probably about a day away. I can't feel my heart again, and I tug my hand away, find the pulse on my other wrist. It's thready, faint, unsteady. My chest feels empty. "Nothing."

"Maura!" Mab stands, knocking the stool over yet again, and starts to pace, her eyes never leaving my face. Her entire being hums with nervous energy and resolve. "You can't tell me to do nothing! Tell me what to _do_. I know you know how to save yourself." Her voice breaks, shatters like she's the glass one. "Sister mine, is it so horrible? Am I so horrible?"

"No!" I protest. How can she think that? With even more energy. "No, of _course_ not, sister mine. Mab, of course not. You're wonderful. You're amazing. You're wondrous." My heart makes an appearance, thudding loud enough I think surely she's able to hear. "Oh, Mab, don't ever think you're not."

Mab scrubs her cheeks, like tears are the most awful thing ever to happen. "I- Thank you, Maura, I love you too, incredible girl, but you have to _tell_ me. What can I do?"

"Stay with me?" my traitor mouth says. "Stay here? I don't want to be alone."

More tears. She's shaking, oh-so-slightly, blinking so fast I can barely see her bright eyes. "Oh, Maura."

She sits, and I tug weakly on her hand, grin. Mab sighs, rolls her eyes through a sheen of tears, settles in beside me. It's like lying next to Juliette, a furnace, a comfort. A different sort than my girlfriend, though. My heart settles, and my arm goes under her shoulders. I bury my face in her shoulder, try to feel nothing but determination. Memorize this girl too, in case everything is the last time.

I don't know if there's life after life, but if there is, I want something to remember. Juliette. Meadhbh. Mab. The things worth living for, holding on that one day more. Making the thing worth dying for that much more horrible.

Mab is taking shuddering breaths, but slowly, they even out, and so do mine. I sleep, curled next to my sister, my only warmth from her.

I don't dream.


	16. Chapter 16

When I wake, to mid-morning light making the dust look like golden panelling, I'm alone. The dent in the covers at my side is cold, and I'm frozen. Mab's been gone for a while, then. Maybe she's at school?

I manage to sit up, pain tearing my chest apart (talk about old news), to see that someone has stuck the drawing of the three of us on the wall. I smile down at myself, rendered in crayon and adoration. We look so innocent in wax, like our future isn't to kill the world. Like we aren't anything but monsters in pretty little skins.

I tear my glance away to find my phone sitting on the rickety bedside table. With herculean effort, I reach for it, pick it up. There's twenty six unread texts from an unknown number, each more concerned than the last.

**Juliette.**

**Where are you? Skipping out on our lunch date?**

**Maura?????**

**MAURAAAAAAAAAAAA**

**HEYYYYYY MAURRARARARARA**

**Nobody's seen you**

**Did you not come to school?**

**Seriously Maura where are you? You can't just skip out on school after telling me you're dying**

**Maura**

**Are you dying?**

**Maura honestly. Where are you?**

**Why aren't you answering your phone?**

**ANSWER YOUR PHONE**

**At least text me back c'mon**

**Maura I'm worried please please please text me back**

**Please don't be dead come on**

**Maura, where are you?**

**MAURA**

**THEY JUST CAME INTO CLASS AND SAID YOU WERE MOVING SCHOOLS WHAT THE HELL**

**WHATS GOING ON**

**WHY DIDNT YOU TELL ME?**

**You should have told me!**

**Miss you Maura. Where are you? Why did you leave?**

**Maura you really should answer your phone by now are you okay**

**please tell me you're okay**

**Maura I think I might lo**

**call me okay**

My fingers hover over the keyboard, uncertainty killing me more than the malfunctioning heart. Text her back? Don't text her back? Have a clean break? Let her wonder?

I let my hands fall into my lap.

"Ugh," I tell the room. I sound like I've been gargling boulders all night. Again: "_Ugh_."

Then, before I can change my mind, I press CALL.

It rings, rings, rings. It's eight agonizing rings before there's a muted _click_ and Juliette's voice rings out, tinny and recorded. "This is Juliette Ramirez. If you meant to call me, leave a message after the beep! If not, well," a giggle that hits so hard I can't breathe for a second, "I wish you luck with the right number!"

**Beep**.

The line statics. Buzzes. I take deep breaths, clear my throat. Once. Twice. "Hi," I say, painfully bright. "Juliette. It's me, Maura."

A pause. The line fuzzes in and out. "I'm sorry," I say eventually. "I was sleeping. My mother picked me up, took me to the hospital. I was talking to my sisters. Sleeping." A giggle. "My littlest sister, Meadhbh - did I tell you about her? - drew a picture of the three of us. I wish I could show it to you."

I wish I could show her everything. The world, maybe. The silence itches, and words start to tumble.

"I'm sorry I couldn't make it to school. I'm sorry I didn't text you back. I'm so, so sorry for all of this. For dying. For being out of reach.

"But I'm not sorry for you. Out of everything," and I sound too earnest, too young, almost artificially heartbroken, but it's all real. Too real. "_Everything_, Juliette, I'm not sorry that I kissed you. Every second, holding hands, that was the best it's ever been. I know you think my mother is crazy, and honestly, sometimes I think I am too.

"Thank you, Juliette. For holding my hand. For making me watch the Lion King. For dancing in the rain, for every perfect second. You're breathtaking, startling, stupefyingly beautiful and I wish I had more time. I wish _we_ had more time.

"I'm sorry, Juliette, that I couldn't be your Romeo, that I couldnt stay. But at least this time, only one of us has to die.

"That's me. And..." I falter. Start again. "And I..."

"I love you. Love you so much. Love you, Juliette."

I close my eyes, take deep breaths, try so hard not to cry. Tears drip. "I love you. Don't do a Juliet, please. Love someone else. I'm not worth it. But if it's worth anything, I promise, I love you, and I wish it could have been different. I wish I could live, but that's not going to happen.

"I'm so sorry," I say again, and I'm full out sobbing, barely able to force the words out. "And I love you. I'm sorry."

I hang up, take a deep breath, and fling my phone across the room. It hits the corner of the dresser with a horrific crunch and falls to the floor in a shatter of plastic and glass.

Footsteps rumble outside and Mab bursts through the door, chest heaving, eyes wild. I try to look like I haven't just said goodbye. Her eyes go from my tears to the dead phone, back to me. She's put herself back together somewhat in the hours since I've last seen her, but the cracks are painfully visible, fault lines in circles under her eyes.

"Oh, sister mine," she says, makes her way to the bed and sits, gingerly. "What are we going to do?"

"Make me lunch?" I suggest. "I've been living off peanut butter sandwiches. Can I have a croissant?"

Mab hits my arm. I pretend like it hurt. "Sure, sure, picky eater. Anything else? Caviar, perhaps?"

I screw my face up. Flick her back. "Ew, no way! _Mab_!"

Weights fall from her shoulders as she throws her head back and laughs. She looks her age again, and I feel so awful for dragging her down so much. She deserves to be the child I didn't get to be - not worrying about moral dilemmas and people dying. Mab's still cackling when she wanders back out the door, and I sag like my strings have been cut.

It's exhausting to act like I'm not dying and crying. Every second that passes makes my chest heavier, heart falter more. I can feel myself fading in real time and it's the most terrifying thing in the world. I have to remind myself that one of my tiny life isn't worth innumerable men, all with lives and loves and ambitions. It's not worth twelve or more men a year to keep myself upright. Stealing someone's heart is horrible enough, even if it's just a metaphor. It breaks them.

I hope beyond hope that I haven't broken Juliette. She deserves a million times me, a girl that can dance and sing and love and live. She deserves a girl that likes Disney, that can see her dreams without being told and actually _tell_ her to live them. Juliette deserves someone that isn't sugar glass inside, just waiting for the blow to break them.

Juliette deserves someone that isn't me. All I can do is drag her down and make her cry, make her miserable. And then die.

She deserves a girl that can walk on her own. I glare at the door. I have to go to the bathroom, dammit. And I am _not _calling up Mab. She can be my food slave, but I draw the line at her carrying me down the hall. She could do it, I'm sure, the first harmless vestiges of Stealer strength peeping through, but seriously? No way am I going to ask my _little sister_ to carry me to the bathroom.

I shove the blankets off, swing my legs to the floor. Vertigo seizes my mind and shakes it like a toy. My stomach tips and turns and screams. I nearly pass out. But never let it be said that Maura Tuller is weak. Somehow, I stand, shuffle to the door, haul it open, make it halfway down the hall. The wall is like a crutch, only better, because it doesn't fall over when I do.

I'm slumped against the wall, everything braced in an attempt to make it to the bathroom, maybe ten feet away. I calculate the odds of me getting there if I do it one big burst.

High. If I'm insane. But hey.

I stagger off the wall, ten feet blurring beneath my bare freezing feet, and pass through the door before I slump against the sink. It's even more cooperative than the wall, supporting my weight without even a groan.

I'm done with the bathroom and halfway down the hall when my legs stop cooperating and dump me. I try to catch myself, but one hand hits first and takes all my weight and again, there's an awful felt-not-heard _crack_ and everything fuzzes away completely.


	17. Chapter 17

I wake up back in my bed, and I can't move my legs. My heart is throbbing, stopping, throbbing.

Somehow, I think this is the end.

Sensation trickles back in, a flood of pins and needles and sickly warmth. I still can't feel my legs. Someone's clutching my hands, though, and sound is next to come back. Mab, talking softly. Her voice is hoarse, like she's been crying and talking for a long time, now.

"...did I ever tell you about the time Ms. Christine let us watch American Idol in class? It was one of the last days, you know, when every is like, 'Screw school, we're gonna have _fun_' and then they refuse to listen to the teacher? Anyway, yeah, it was great. We got to take turns going up to the front and lip syncing.

"Wanda did this really great overdramatic rendition of... Sister mine? Are you awake?" Mab grips my hand tighter, the bones grating together. It should hurt, but all I can feel is the dull ache in my heart. "Sister mine?'

_Yes_, I try to say. _I'm awake. I'm okay. I love you._

I can't. It's all I can do to pry my eyes open. The window is still open, but it's dark outside, the streetlights turning the sky odd orange. Streetlights flicker oddly in the distance, shadowing the sunset with false light. That's why I like dawn more. More natural. Less of people interfering with nature's magic.

I've slept away the day? Again? What is _wrong_ with me?

_A failing heart, Maura._

"Oh, Maura," she says and Mab rests her head on our twined hands, like she's praying. Her eyes are dry for now, but it's only a matter of minutes. There's something leaking away from me that feels like life or energy or soul. "Thank god."

"Thank you too," I croak out, surprising the both of us. "You carried me here."

Mab shakes her head, not listening. She looks bleached by the streetlights, the little lamp. Hair nearly dead white. "You _had_ to fall again." she's saying, half to herself. "And break something. Maura, tomorrow I could bring in boys, girls, anything, anyone to give you a heart. You have to give me _time_, sister mine, or I can't save you."

Why can't she see that I don't want to be saved? Is saying "I can't" too confusing? Is saying, "Don't," shoving hearts away, ignoring the poetry laid out on a silver platter, not enough? Is she going to keep blaming herself all the way until I'm dead?

"Don't," I tell Mab. "Don't try to save me. It's too late."

Tears come. For both of us. I can't summon the energy to brush mine away, or the strength to free my hand from Mab's embrace. Something deep in me shudders. Again, I wonder if there's anything after death. Any time to say to yourself, _See, that was worth it, you did it, even if you didn't survive._

"Is there anything I can do?" Mab is shaking my hands like that will stop me from slipping away. A tear lands on my arm. "Isn't there _anything_ I can do?"

A muted cry slips through my lips as pain roars in my chest, worse than it's ever been before. It feels like the world is about to explode. I want to throw up, to pound on my chest until my heart starts again. I can barely speak. "Remember."

I mean remember that the people we steal from are _people_, remember sweet Juliette, remember love, remember how we've let ourselves become monsters. Remember that I wasn't one.

But Mab is smiling bravely though her tears and nodding. "I will. I'll remember what happened to you so it won't ever happen to anyone else. I won't forget you fading away. It won't happen to Meadhbh or me or Tulip or anyone. Don't cry, sister mine. What happened to you won't happen again."

_No_. I want to say. _No, that's not what I meant._

But I can't.

I close my eyes.


End file.
